How High Is Up?

How High is Up? (1940)

** 1/2 (out of 4)

This Three Stooges short isn't one of their best but I think it's the perfect example of how talented Moe, Larry and Curly were and how they could take average material and make it better. It starts off with the three sleeping under their car until they end up floating down the street and nearly getting killed. To avoid a police officer they duck into a construction job where they're assigned the 97th story and of course they end up destroying it. HOW HIGH IS UP? isn't the greatest short out there and you can tell by some of the jokes, which never really work even though it's obvious the boys are doing their best with it. The scene has Curly wearing a sweater, which gets stuck on him so Moe and Larry must try and get him out of it. This sequence goes on for quite a bit and while we never get that really big laugh we at least get smiles because it really does seem as Moe and Larry are earning their money. The second part of the short deals with the construction stuff. We've seen countless occupations for the boys and usually they end up making a mess of things so that routine isn't really anything new year. As you'd expect, jokes range from the boys getting hurt using the tools and being up on the 97th story you know we're going to get some jokes where the boys almost fall off. All three are in fine form and they make more out of the material than most comedians would have.

In this classic, 3 Stooges, comedy-short from 1940, Curly, Larry & Moe, of Minute Menders Inc., offer the public, from the convenience of their vehicle, cut-rate repair work while-u-wait.

In an attempt to dodge the wrath of angry construction workers whose lunch-pails they deliberately punctured with holes (for the sake of business), our 3 crazy guys get themselves hired on by Apex Construction, claiming to be "the best riveters who ever riveted".

Hoisted up to the 97th floor of a building still only a shell, The Three Stooges waste no time fouling things up as only they could possibly foul things up (with, the usual, guaranteed hilarious results).

Featuring all of their trademark shenanigans (face-slaps, eye-pokes, belly-wallops, and all), How High Is Up? is yet another first-rate example of Three Stooges' slapstick-comedy at its laughable best.

In a year when defense plants were starting to crank out material for war and employment was near full capacity, there were three guys who couldn't find work. I think you know who they are.

Ten years earlier the sight of Moe, Larry, and Curly sleeping under their truck no one would have noticed or bothered them. But in 1940 a cop tells them to move and they have to move even without repairing their flat tire on the truck with a salami. Don't ask about that one.

Anyway the boys in eluding some other working stiffs whose lunch pails they punched holes in, they get themselves hired as construction workers with Larry serving up hot rivets as a specialty. Don't ask about what Moe and Curly do with them.

With seeing the Three Stooges in How High Is Up doing construction, no wonder the women of America rose to the challenge and Rosie the Riveter was born. After seeing the boys why couldn't women do a better job.

But not in comedy, this is one of the best Three Stooges shorts ever.

"How High Is Up?" is another explosively funny Three Stooges short. Moe, Larry, and Curly find themselves working on the 97th floor of a not yet completed skyscraper that's currently under construction. Ineptitude and slapstick follow. Big, big, big laughs in this one.

Nearing to BIG 50. The Stooges 48th classic comedy short, and really, really trippy stuff. Let's put it this way -- had this been real life, these guys would have been TOAST.

This one is terrific. Absolutely. Moe, Larry and Curly get hired(?) as riveters on the 97th floor(!) of a skyscraper under construction. Director Del Lord's super camera work gets you paranoid at times, it seems so real. Curly, without fail, is the menace to society here, messing things up big time for Moe and Larry, not to mention nearly having them all fall off the building! There's always food around -- because these guy are hungry all the time -- and watch for the sausages, mistaken for rivets? The best gag.

Their hot tempered boss, Mr. Blake, is played to the hilt by Vernon Dent, the guy all us kids loved to hate. Look for actor Bruce Bennett as one of the workmen. Bruce would go onto appear in many Warner Brothers film classics, like TREASURE OF SIERRA MADRE.

BEST comes at the end -- the Stooges use parachutes to escape the 97th floor!

Beautifully written insanity by Elwood Ullman, one of their best writers. Notes indicate the aerial shots of the building were filmed at the Empire State Building in New York City.

Thanks so much to METV for running these oldies Saturdays non stop. Always on dvd, remastered Columbia box set. Generally boxed by decades, 30s, 40s and 50s episodes.